


Touch Me

by Yooms (Yummistuck)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 01:30:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yummistuck/pseuds/Yooms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A what-if situation of the recent flash update.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch Me

Dave watches Kanaya glide away, that weird fish troll girl scampering after her cheerfully like a sort of lost, happy puppy. He shifts his feet a bit, watching them greet Rose from the corner of his eye—he realizes now, now that they interrupted his jittery but constant flow of rapping that he really has been doing nothing but standing for the past hour, and his legs were stiff now. A quick stroll around the meteor, especially when the meteor’s passing through another dream bubble, could suffice. He wouldn’t have to move that far, even.

Dave stuffs his hands into his pocket and slinks away, ignoring the little chatter he hears coming from the girls. Ugh, girls. Not that there’s anything wrong with girls. Girls are great. They’re pretty and smell nice and are generally great people, even when you happen to stumble upon them when they are the worst of their moods and are ready to razor anything that happens upon their path with giant chainsaws. Yeah. Girls are great.

But still, being surrounded by them sucks sometimes, especially when your only real male companions are this weird you-don’t-even-remembered-what-he’s-called—carapiece??—that believes that he’s some sort of rad mayor (well no problems there) and an emotionally upset troll who has been doing nothing but sulking the past two years.

Huh. New thought. Dave realizes that he hasn’t seen Karkat in a while. They’re still in the meteor, even though they’re also technically in a dreambubble—which means that Karkat’s still here. Maybe he could find him, bug him a bit, see what’s up.

It doesn’t take long. Dave walks into that little room that Karkat claimed for himself, one that he surprisingly didn’t protect with a huge password that he tells no one, and in the dimness he discerns a huge pile of metal objects and a lump on top of it. A bit of blinking makes him realize that those are horns, metal ones that squeak really loudly when you step on them (there’s a billion on the floor, too, he has to make sure he doesn’t step on any of them) and the lump is actually Karkat.

He’s face down in the pile, his body draped over the metal objects as if they are a fucking Tempur-Pedic. He’s breathing softly, and Dave realizes with a small jolt that he’s actually sleep. Fuck. How tired do you have to be to actually sleep on a pile of metal objects—especially Karkat, who can easily have an edge of a horn poke in between his ribs and oh god he’d fucking die.

Maybe he should move him. It wouldn’t be that hard—he seems knocked out anyway. Dave was about half-ready to do it when he sensed a breath of presence behind him, and he twirled around to find—Karkat. The human glanced behind him—but, no, Karkat was there, but Karkat was here. Two Karkats. Two angry bundles of troll in the same room. At least one of them’s asleep, Dave tells himself—he’s not Jade, no way in hell he’s going to deal with two awake ones.

Karkat opens his mouth and begins to talk, but Dave doesn’t pay attention—not because he just doesn’t like to pay attention whenever Karkat graces anyone with his elocution (okay maybe partially because of that) but because he just noticed how—how  _tired_  the troll sounded. The troll is literally asleep right there in the same room yet he’s talking and he sounds just tired, so weary, as if the world is on his shoulders and he just wants to shrug them off but can’t. Heck, that’s probably exactly how he felt. Dave could sympathize.

So his replies are a bit curt, a bit lost, until Karkat suddenly looks at him right into the eye and said, “Touch me.”

Woah. Woah back up hold up screeching stop. “What,” Dave manages.

“Just give me a little poke,” Karkat prompts, and Dave gets a bit of the context but that doesn’t stop the discomfort squirming in him.

“No,” he says, frowning.

Karkat frowns back, crossing his arms in front of him. “Don’t be like that,” he retorts. “Just man up and touch me!”

Ouch, did he really just question his manliness. A troll just questioned Dave’s manliness.

Karkat’s still on it. “Maybe just—brush my cheek gently with the back of your hand. Something unambiguously platonic like that.”

That sounds everything but unambiguously platonic to Dave. “No, fuck you. I’m not touching your dream-hologram,” Dave replies.

Karkat just rolls his eyes. “Just do it.”

“No.”

“Do it.”

“No.”

“Do it.”

“No—”

“JUST DO IT.”

“Fine fine jeez alright sheesh.”

Dave can’t believe that he’s doing this, but he reaches out a tentative hand. Crap, which side to Karkat say to touch him with—fuck too late because his palm is now cupped around Karkat’s cheek, and Karkat blinks at this contact but then sort of just—

stays there. No “aha” by him, no pulling away—he just stays there standing with Dave’s hand against his cheek like it’s perfectly normal. His expression chances—its hardness suddenly softens, his body posture suddenly relaxes, and he lets out a small sigh that Dave can feel against his hand.

Okay uh—

Dave quickly pulls away and the spell’s broken. Karkat’s left blinking at the emptiness on his face, and he blankly reaches a hand up there to touch it.

“S—” Fuck, Dave thinks to himself, you’re stuttering. “So. You look really tired man—your sleep phantom should curl up with your napping meat torso in the horn pile and try to score some shuteye.”

“Oh,” Karkat replies slowly, glancing at the pile. “Alright.”

Dave blinks, having expected some sort of fight, and watches Karkat totter away to the pile. The trolls climbs on top of it, causing plenty of honks to ring and Dave’s amazed that his actual self doesn’t awaken, but no, his dreamself just curls up not far from his actual self. It’s weird yet strangely adorable, fuck, Dave realizes now that he has to leave.

“Uh, so, later—” he began, ready to step out, but Karkat sits up so suddenly that the human freezes.

“… Yes?”

Karkat looks at him, just looks at him, and Dave understands before the troll says anything.

“Uh. Could you—Could you stay?” Karkat finally asks, oh so tentatively.

“Aw,” Dave says, putting a hand against his chest. The distance from Karkat is making it easier for him to talk. “Need me to protect you, Karkles?”

“Shut up,” Karkat growls, his hands curling into fists before relaxing. “Just—just—”

“Fine,” Dave says, sitting down cross-legged on the floor. “Daddy Dave will stay here and watch over little Karkat as he sleeps and makes sure he doesn’t get any nightmares. Just get some rest dude. I’ll be here.”

Karkat stares at Dave for a moment, a bit unsure—but then he settles back into the horn pile.

“Night, knight,” Dave says.

Karkat snorts sleepily. “Good night, asshole.”


End file.
